


Day 1: Beginning

by ANE925



Series: 30 Days Tumblr Prompt Challenge [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Derek Hale/Stiles, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Stiles Angst, Stiles Feels, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANE925/pseuds/ANE925
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short fic I wrote for a tumblr challenge.</p>
<p>Stiles, not wanting anyone to worry about him, decides to face his demons alone. </p>
<p>"Start at the beginning"<br/>‘What a pretentious thing to say,’ Stiles thought. ‘What was the "beginning"?</p>
<p>*Trigger warnings<br/>nothing serious I put it up just to be on the safe side<br/>see notes for full detail</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 1: Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning  
>  Stiles mentally putting himself down. Again nothing really explicit but I wanted to be on the safe side for any readers.

"Start at the beginning"

‘What a pretentious thing to say,’ Stiles thought. ‘What was the "beginning"? Was it the moment you finally caved and admitted it to yourself? Or was it the moment when, looking back, you realized you first started to cave? Was it the moment first you met? Or was it the moment you decided to walk out the door? Should you even define a word by your own experiences? Or should you view it from another's advantage point? Is...’

"Stiles!" Scott cried out giving his should a firm squeeze, drawing his attention back out of his head.

"Sorry" Stiles murmured. Then, voice growing steadier, he continued, "I was just thinking about what a vague saying that is. I mean what even is the beginning? How do you define something so..."

"I would define it as the start of whatever it was that sent you into a panic attack!" Scott exclaimed, cutting him off mid rant, which, rude much? One hand flailed through the air while the other stayed firm on Stiles' shoulder, grounding him. Taking a deep breath, Stiles tried to gather his thoughts. With another deep drag of air, Stiles braced himself. There was no way he could talk to Scott about what had sent him over the edge, and Scott wasn't going to like hearing that.

"It was nothing," Stiles tried, hoping Scott would read between the lines and drop the conversation.

"Noth...Nothing!" Scott sputtered. Ah, so he wasn't going to drop it. Not that Stiles really thought he would. Scott might be a lot of things, but master of subtlety he was not. Actually, he wasn't even an apprentice of subtlety, if anything he was...  

"Stiles you had a panic attack!" Right Scott was still ranting... Not really the time to be zoning out. Probably wasn't helping his case. Did he have a case? Oh, whatever.

"You don't have a panic attack because of nothing!" Scott proclaimed, finished ranting, or caring, not that there was a difference when Scott was involved...

"Sorry my bad," Stiles started sarcastically. Stiles knew the next words out of his mouth were going to hurt Scott deeply but he was unable to stop them.

"I meant it's nothing _you_ can help with," he finished, stressing the _you_ to Scott.

Scott pulled away for the first time, looking betrayed.

"Stiles..." he started, his voice filled with confusion and hurt.

"No, Scott buddy, don't look at me like that." Stiles could already feel the guilt creeping in. Ok, how was he going to fix this without telling Scott what set him off?

"Look it really isn't anything big I just, I just..." Stiles broke off with a sigh, gathered himself, and tried again, "Look I just need to work though it myself, ok?"

"Stiles, I don't think..." Scott tried pleading with, not just his voice, but also his eyes, trying to get Stiles to open up to him. Yeah no, not happening, no way, no how, not now.

"Here," Stiles starts his voice pleading with Scott to understand, "if it really gets bad I swear I'll talk, ok? How's that sound?"

"Stiles..." Scott was basically whimpering now and, shit, Stiles didn't even want to think about what kind of scents he was releasing; what kind of emotions he was letting break out.

"Scott, buddy" Stiles started, a hand mindlessly wandering up to scrub through his hair. "Look I just, I need some time. Ok, buddy? Just give me some time."

"Ok," Scott finally breathed out, still looking sad, confused, and worst of all hurt. Then, a determined gleam filled his eyes and he gathered himself.

Drawing himself up he said, "But you promise me, you swear to me that if it gets too bad you will talk to me. And if, if you can't" Scott swallowed and harshly pulled in a breath to visibly collect himself and start over again.

"If  you can't talk with me..." and, wow, did that sound choked out? Almost like someone had to rip it out with a fishing hook whose line was made of barb wire.

"Then talk to someone, anyone, Isaac, Lydia..."

"I swear Scott, I'll even pinkie swear" With a weak laugh, Scott took the extended pinkie in his own. Then he pulled Stiles into a full body hug. Well, “hug” didn’t exactly cover it. It mostly felt like Scott was trying to squeeze all the darkness out of him while simultaneously barring him from the world as if he could stop the words racing through his head.

"Ok," Stiles started, "While this is truly touching and all, I would like to breathe again," he finished, patting Scott on the back, then cuffing him on the head when he had the audacity to laugh. Pulling back, Scott then bent down and threw a controller to Stiles.

"You ready to get your ass handed to you?" Scott asked with a crooked smile, raising an eyebrow like he was daring Stiles to correct him. And, oh how Stiles wished he could give Scott the verbal beat down he deserved for that one. If Scott thought he could intimidate him with an eyebrow, he had another thing coming. Stiles had faced down bigger and scarier eyebrows on many occasions. However, that wasn't the point. The point was that Scott had said he was leaving, hadn't he? What happened to that game plan?

"Wait, I thought you were leaving." Stiles stated. He didn’t ask because he vividly remembered Scott getting a text from Isaac and saying he had to go.

"You know, to meet up with Isaac? To go do scary wolfy things that the squishable human can't join in on? Besides, didn't he have some big wolfy news he needed to tell the big bad alpha? Like, immediately? Isn't that what the text was about?" Stiles reminded Scott. Honestly, what would Scott do without him?

‘Actually get some sleep maybe? Be able to hang out with the girl of his dreams all the time? Besides, he's got Isaac now to remind him of things he forgets. Remember?’Stiles’ treacherous brain replied.

"Well it will just have to wait till I finish beating you." Scott states, thankfully cutting off  his thoughts.

"Uh huh," Stiles says, a small smile creeping across his face.

"In that case, poor Isaac will be waiting forever." Stiles boasted with a smirk.

"Shut up," Scott exclaimed with a face splitting smile, giving Stiles a gentle shoulder bump. Stiles couldn't hold in a laugh as he rubbed his shoulder.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Scott snored away next to him, Stiles wondered how he did it. How he ignored the darkness. How he could sleep while it whispered cruel words in his ear . That was why he couldn't tell Scott. He wouldn't get it. Even worse, when he found out that he was part of the problem...Well... Stiles didn't even want to think about how he would react to that. Besides, Scott would be fine. It was a pathetic reason. One that made Stiles feel like an overly needy girlfriend.

‘I mean, how do you tell Scott you broke down because he said he was leaving, again, just like he always does when someone better calls? Like how your father leaves every chance he gets just so he doesn't have to look at you. You, who so unjustly look like your mother. You drive a grown man out of his own home. Looking at him with her eyes. Talking to him with her words. You, who made her leave. Just like you drive everyone else away. Your father, Scott, even Der...’

‘Shut up!’ Stiles mentally screamed, his hands coming up to cover his ears. Like that would do any good. Like that would stop him from hearing the words whispered in his head. The worst part, the part that made it absolutely unbearable, was that the voice was right. He did drive everyone away. What with his constant chatter, wild movements, unpredictable actions, and a stubbornness, a pride, that refused to let him admit when he was wrong. At this point, you would think that he would be used to people leaving. People always left.

But, Derek had seemed different. Derek seemed to find his endless chatter more interesting than annoying. Derek seemed to enjoy his wild movements rather than be wary of them. True, Derek hadn't always liked his unpredictability, but it had gotten him a few laughs from Derek. And, yes, they were both so stubborn that bulls would have stopped fighting before he and Derek, but he had honestly thought Derek was different. Stiles had thought Derek would be the one who wouldn't leave without a word. Stiles thought that all those late nights, Derek coming to him for help with the supernatural, Derek helping him with school work or just listening to his rants, and their weird mutual life saving thing they had going meant something.

He thought that, after all that had happened, they were at least friends. He thought he was warranted an explanation for Derek's desire to leave or, at least, a good bye. And the worst part was that, just as Derek left, Stiles realized his beginning. He had just finally admitted to himself that he was beginning to fall in love with Derek, just as Derek was walking out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it!
> 
> Unending thanks to my slave driver... uh hum I mean encouraging, wonderful, flawless, ruthless... I meant caring, Beta tumblr user welcometotheasylummywaywardson. Without whom I never would actually post anything. Thanks darling for putting up with my grammar! (or lack there of)


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